Ferndale's Second War of Independance III

“What do you want to do about Sam’s latest plan?” Kerma asked, wishing that she didn’t have to keep talking business, but it was important. Sweet nothings were very, very rarely exchanged between the couple. Kerma had given up on the idea of a truly romantic, romantic relationship, when she had realized that she had fallen in love with Frendral.

“I approve.”

“Good, so do I, I saw Tom bandaging up Liz, is she in condition to help or should we call out John?” Kerma asked.

“John’s better. Liz got stabbed with a letter opener.”

“Not exactly the injury that you think of happening in times of war. I can guess what happened though; she was stealing letters of someone or other and got caught. Whoever it was grabbed what was closest to use as a weapon, am I right?”

“It was a Lieutenant, other then that, you got it,” Frendral looked a little grim and Kerma knew why. Liz and John were a team that could cause endless trouble to any enemy and with one of them out because of an injury John wouldn’t be working as well as he could be. John and Liz had driven an entire squad to distraction with their antics only a few weeks before, they were masters of their work and important in any plans that were being hatched. Tom would have liked to do more field work personally but as the leader of the spies he had been told, until he had finally caved, that he really needed to keep his head attached to his shoulders. The enemy would be all too happy to kill Tom and everyone knew it.

“Look,” Frendral said, pointing down at the enemy army below them. At first the enemy had camped right below their walls, a sure sign of their lack of experience with walled cities, they had moved their camp out of throwing distance fairly quickly. Even from the distance that they now had to look at the enemy both Frendral and Kerma could see the army was moving into marching position, in the direction of their city.

“Another attack, you’d think they would learn that just attacking the wall won’t work. They aren’t going to wear it down,” Kerma commented.

“Lack of experience,” Frendral said, shrugging. Kerma nodded; if they had been in charge of the attack they would have tried tunneling or explosives. The underground cities knew nothing of explosives though, that was something that the people of Ferndale had learned from the farmers. Kerma thought about Sam’s latest plan, the underground cities would know about explosives fairly soon. It was a horrible, bloodthirsty idea, but it would drive the wind out of the sails of the enemy for sure this time. She just hoped there was no one she was related to down there.

Kerma stood up and rang the warning bell on their stretch of the wall. It was relayed around the entire wall, a system that made sure that no part of the city would be taken advantage of by the attack. Noe and Kamashi were on the wall before anyone else was; the messenger station was just at the base of the wall.

“Noe, go send off the flair so everyone knows it’s this part of the wall they’re attacking. Kamashi, go and get John, tell him we need him right away,” Kerma ordered. Kamashi took off at a dash, which is why Kerma had sent her on the truly urgent errand. Noe was too lazy to really be a messenger and the only reason they kept him employed was because he had always worked as a messenger for the rulers of Ferndale. Noe had left at what could be called best a leisurely saunter.

To be continued...